Page 14 of What’s Left of You (What Left #2)

“Where is it?”

Mama frowns up at me as we stand together in her kitchen that Sunday, her arms locked over her chest now that she’s set aside the rolling pin. For a moment when I walked in I was certain she would clock me with it. “I don’t know what you mean, Vincenzo. You haven’t visited in weeks.”

I grind my teeth together, glancing back towards the car.

Jo stands outside leaning against it, speaking with Xeno and Jonathan to pass the time.

I told her I needed to come by and grab something, mostly because Sterling will get a warrant for the house if Mama doesn’t start listening.

He’s already pissing me off for upsetting Jo, and nothing good came from our meeting earlier in the week.

They aren’t making enough progress for my taste, and if the FBI can’t lock in on Alastair soon I’d be surprised if he hasn’t left the state.

Scratching the back of my head, Sterling’s voice replays in my head from his last phone call.

“Your sister Echo said the book is at your house,” he reminds me, and I clench the phone.

A new body pops up and suddenly he’s up my ass about this.

“She hasn’t brought you the book and we aren’t finding it online, Vinny.

Porscha wrote that book with a specific audience in mind and she’s succeeded in capturing her fans in her web.

We need to know how detailed her account of Alastair is. ”

Echo is a particular thorn in my side. She threw a fit when two weeks after Alastair disappeared the FBI showed up and looked through her room.

They found some weed and a bunch of adult toys, all things I’ve decided not to talk to my sister about.

But they were looking for the book Jo’s mom wrote under a penname, and I already told the assholes it wouldn’t be in Echo’s dorm.

“Mama, please, let’s not do this,” I sigh. “The book is part of an investigation. Just hand it over. You never even read it.”

“Love in Lockup.” Mama screws up her face and finally looks away from me. “That filth doesn’t need to be in our home, figlio.”

I roll my eyes. Mama’s trying my last nerve today, and she’s trying to soften me up by calling me son . As if that ever used to work. “Stop messing with the case. It’s a book, and a dumb one at that. About us, probably. Where is it?”

She takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “That book had no business being here! Echo mentioned it and I told her that blasphemy isn’t staying in my house! I had your papa take it when he was here.”

Staring at her, it takes a moment to roll over everything in my head. “You gave… evidence that’s imperative to the case to Papa?”

“Yes. It’s out of the house. You can call him if you need it so badly.”

I groan. This is one of my mother’s ridiculous ploys to get me to speak to Massimo.

Considering I haven’t spoken with him since before we left Citrus Grove, I can’t imagine this is going to go well.

The SOB is a black belt in holding a grudge.

“Are you purposefully trying to make things harder, Mama?”

She turns, slamming down the spoon she just picked up. “Your sister had no business bringing that into the home to begin with! Such nonsense, and it might be about that, that…”

I let her stumble over the words for a moment, turning to lean back against the counter as her cheeks warm.

Mama’s eyes have turned cold since I pushed her for answers, and I can feel her anger and disappointment seeping into the kitchen.

I refuse to turn into the model son she always envisioned I would be, so petty nonsense is her way of rebelling.

I don’t know how Xeno handles her shit all the time.

“You’re worried the book is going to talk about my relationship with Alastair?” I ask bluntly, and she sputters. “Don’t worry, Mama, any love we shared burned away when he hurt Jo, not that you seem to particularly care about that. I will never love him the same way anymore.”

She takes a steadying breath, her hands balling to fists. I tilt my head and watch her war with herself, wondering if she’s picking something up to strike me with like she used to when I was a teenager.

My mother isn’t a saint, even if she paints herself as one. She doesn’t have Massimo’s violence, but she’s lingered in his shadow all of these years. She’s turned a blind eye to his cruelty and I think it’s amazing the rest of my siblings didn’t flee the state too.

For a moment, guilt rolls through me. When Papa denounced me from the family, tearing away the title of heir like it was some sort of great loss, he turned his focus to Xeno, who rose to the challenge. I didn’t want the family legacy , but he’s thrived here.

Maybe that’s why Massimo isn’t here and I would much prefer if he stayed whenever he is until we get out of here.

By the time Mama responds, I’ve nearly given up. She paces, muttering in Italian until she spins on me again. “You never should’ve loved him to begin with. The girl-”

“My wife,” I bark, and she pushes me. Her palms are small but forceful when she shoves me, pressing me back into the counter.

She shakes a fist at me, and I bat her hand away.

“Don’t disrespect my wife, Mama. In a storm of lies, I still chose her above all others.

Alastair, the family, you all pale in comparison to Jo. ”

She hisses, reaching up to strike me. I knew I was pushing her to her limits, and the fake love she’s shown me since we arrived in Florida makes me sick. In her own way, my mother is just as manipulative as Jo’s.

I shove her hand away, and she growls up at me.

“You can stop pretending you’re better than Massimo, Mama.

You’re both cut from the same heartless cloth.

Leaving home was the best decision I’ve made.

Soon, when the family sides with Xeno over Massimo, you’ll see why kindness must be paired with loyalty. You and Papa both missed that part.”

She scoffs, crossing her arms. At least she’s no longer trying to hit me. “You’ve wasted your time coming here looking for it. As soon as I saw that the book was important to you I asked Massimo about it. Sent it down to him with one of the men.”

I narrow my eyes. Xeno doesn’t share a ton with me about the family, probably because he’s got plenty of his own shit going on outside of two rogue serial killers running around.

Some of the family is still more loyal to Massimo than to my brother, and I will bet it’s one of the older members.

Xeno’s mentioned an imbalance between them these past weeks. “So, it’s no longer in Citrus Grove.”

Mama chuckles. “If your papa had the chance to look at it, it no longer exists.”

This is a huge waste of time. Shaking my head, I push away from the counter. She’s fucking with my head because she’s mad. “So nice to talk to you, Mama, as always.”

“You could be so much happier if you came back to the family,” she counters, stomping after me to the glass doors. For a small woman she makes a lot of noise when she wants to. “You don’t know anything about her mother, figlio. Porscha is a nightmare incarnate.”

I stop at the doors, glaring down at her again. “Are you going to tell me something important about Porscha, or is this more bullshit?”

Mama hesitates, looking between me and the outdoors. I know without checking that she’s eyeing Jo. As though my wife can hear through the glass, Mama leans in closer. “Porscha got pregnant in high school.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Mama.”

She starts to shake her head. “No one knows who the father was. She wouldn’t tell anyone. But she did love this boy, someone she was supposed to stay away from.”

I sigh, shaking my head. More nonsense. Turning to glare out the glass from a moment, I slide my hand into my pocket and tap a few spots on the screen. It was already pre-set, but Mama isn’t aware of that. “Is there a point to this?”

She hisses out a breath through her teeth, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Mama so mad.

Even when she found out I was involved with a boy and a girl at the same time, her eyes didn’t burn with the levels of hatred that they do right now.

“Porscha. She always complained about feeling cheated out of her youth.”

I scoff. “Mama, you never spent time with Porscha. How would you know anything about her? You’re older than her.”

Mama turns up her nose, looking offended that I called her old. “It doesn’t matter. Citrus Grove is a small town. A young girl pregnant during her junior year? She was seventeen! Everyone in town shunned her.”

“Porscha was just a kid,” I say with a shrug.

“Did you ever ask your little wifey about her grandparents?” Mama hisses.

I frown. “Porscha was a loner. Estranged from her family.”

“And she just ended up in Citrus Grove?” Mama prompts.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

She hesitates, looking from me to the window and back again.

She has no idea that I’m breaking her trust, but she hasn't given me any reason to be loyal to her. “I don’t know why Porscha came here. She showed up one summer with her brother and her parents, like they were all on a vacation. Then they left. A few months later Porscha returned to the house the family stayed in. She was pregnant. I heard she emancipated herself from her family to come live here alone.”

Jo’s never brought that up before, but it wouldn’t surprise me if her mother simply never told her. Then again, Jo’s Uncle Wayne never complained about any of that either. The few times I’ve had the displeasure of speaking with him he keeps things brief. “And you can prove that?”

Mama shrugs. “I don’t need to prove it. She’s not my problem. She’s yours, your in-law. Don’t you care what demons hide in your wife’s side of the family?”

I pause, making a show of looking around the house for something. “Do you think she’s the only one?”